Tuesday, November 04, 2008

We entered this shop called cosmed which is equivalent to our watson here...and saw Darlie in pink colour box

Nevermind about the pink..this is even more interesting....darlie is "black man" and they also have "white man"

Beside cosmed is a shop called "ASO"...i thought is the name of japanese PM....but is a direct translation from the chinese words "Ah skinny"

California Fitness is everywhere.....

Inside the shuttle bus to taipei 101.....they even have handles for standing passengers to hold at the back fo the seat...why we don't have it here??

Designated open spaces among the cramp office buildings...

Busy street of taipei...

wonder what the big white box on the road is for?

Because the extreme right lane is designated for motorcycles only....if they need to turn to the left.....they cannot follow the car turn.....there is a box for them to hold and wait for their turn to go....

Bee coffee...apparently very popular...long queue....

IS coffee....the logo look like starbucks one

Big book on the street....

A famous bookshop in Taiwan.......like borders or Kikokuniya

One of the many sogo in taipei.....at least 4-5 along the same street

mrt station entrance.....and we trying to find a supermarket like ntuc.....no luck until we found it at the building beside the mrt station entrance

Then we realised....supermarket is called "welfare service centre" in chinese

Monday, November 03, 2008

Something very different compared to 11 yaers back when I visited taipei is the metro or mrt system......last time used to take a lot of cabs to go around.....but this time...I did not take any cab except to travel between airport and hotel...

I must say that I am quite impressed with the mrt system....Most of the can shop or can see or can visit places are within walking distance or just beside the mrt....and even my hotel is just 5min away from one....and there are more coming up....the new one is going to connect directly to taipei 101...at the moment, there is free shuttle bus provided from the nearest city hall mrt station

Also transfer between different lines is also convenient and easy with all the good signages.....some rails are above the ground and some are underground

The system is user friendly and there are a lot of signage.....as usual....must buy ticket first at the ticketing machine.....

The single trip ticket is a plastic coin....one thing...no deposit needed like the irritating one in singapore.....and the pastic coin also do tap and go at the gate

So I was wondering once I reached the station I want...how do I return the coin and HAR!! There is a coin slot for you to return the ticket!!!

some station platform has no doors...open concept

Some have doors and those are the stations mainly above the ground

and some even have the "half height" doors...

Every station has a clearly demacated waiting lines and lanes

and the people really queue up orderly and wait for passengers to alight before entering.....unlike Singapore mrt...got lines also never follow....door open just rush in...very mess

Signages at platform are well placed and showing the current station and its location in the line..got english and chinese somemore..this is right above the door at one of the station....singapore one need to find the map somewhere....above door only show current and next station name.

Another impressive thing is the accuracy of the train arriving projection is to the nearest 5sec.....if you see the photo on the left column....the time jumps every 5 sec and is accurate...unlike what we have here is to the nearest minute so you dunnoe 1min is coming in 10 sec or 59 sec.....

even got recycling bin in the platform......

This is the city hall station where there is a shuttle bus to taipei 101

This is the transfer corridor between one line to another line....electronic board even show the train information along the way.....something negative about this is you will see more people running after the train

Adidas poster in the station.....with Nothing is Impossible chinese translation as well

This is the above the ground mrt tracks

Something catches my attention is the bicycle park outside the mrt station.....they have special racks to stack up more bicycles ...

Another Impressive thing is this "waiting zone for female passengers at night"...the notice somewhere mentioned that this zone will be covered more clearly by the security cameras compared to other places along the platform.....

There are even underground metro mall connecting one station to another station

In conclusion, travelling within taipei is very convenient and easy using the metro and is a pity that I do not enough time to travel further to explore like the zoo and beitou where the hot springs are........and I think our MRT system should come and study some of the plus points I mentioned that will benefits the passengers more......